The day that shaped my life

I heard the water rushing softly.  In the background many people.  Everyone is hectic, everyone is nervous and running confused.  I just stand there, let my hands dry, close my coat and put on my Op hood.  The only thing I could think about was the glioblastoma.  I have practiced this procedure hundreds of times on the simulator.  I had my first proper brain operation.  My first solo flight.  I went through everything in my head again.  Half the textbook was in my head.  "Brain tumors are most common among the various supporting cells in the brain called glial cells.  These tumors, called gliomas, include astrocytomas, oligodendrogliomas, and ependymomas.  Glioblastomas are the most vicious form of astrocytomas ... "That was all I could think of.  To this malignant, actually inoperable tumor in the middle of the brain of my 9 year old patient.  I went as remote controlled in the Op.  I was put on my gloves and put on my mask.  It beeped.  The only thing I heard now was the beeping of the monitors.  I sat down in my chair.  One of the Op sisters put on my loupe glasses.  I got the devices in my hand.  I started shaving off the little girl's hair.  My heart beat to the moon.  Now I could see the scalp and said it: "Scalpel please!" I started and cut a circle in the little girl's head.  Now there was no turning back.  That's so strange.  One is happy all his life for this moment.  The one moment when you become a real surgeon.  And then ?  Then, when the moment comes, you look paralyzed and totally overwhelmed.  But fine, it had to go on.  I was handed the bone saw.  I started and heard a loud noise.  When I hit the head I was terribly scared.  I drilled deeper and deeper, but carefully with pressure into the head of my little patient.  Suddenly I heard it crunch.  I arrived at the skull.  I pierced it and took out the little plate that I had just cut out.  I saw the brain.  I had the fullest view of a real, intact brain.  I had practiced that on the simulator, I watched endless operations, I watched videos.  But that .  That was the most incredible moment of my life.  That was the moment when I knew what my destiny was.  What I want to do all my life.  I continue to operate.  The surgery lasted four and a half hours but by the end of the day I had seen a brain.  I had managed to completely remove an inoperable tumor, a glioblastoma, from the brain.  And without further complications.  I was proud of myself .  For the first time in my life, I was really proud of myself.  It was I who was allowed to tell the parents who had prepared for the death of their little girl that she was alive.  That I managed to remove her tumor.  That, that was the most beautiful day I ever experienced.